South African bowler Rory Kleinveldt on his dream slip cordon, favourite cricketing destination, and must-have hotel-room amenity

Interview by Jack Wilson13-Jun-2015How do you look at your international career?
I feel I have a little bit of unfinished business. Hopefully I’ll get another crack. I’m still hopeful.Where do you keep your South Africa cap?
In my cricket bag. It never leaves.Whose wicket do you treasure most?
KP. I got him out for a first-ball duck – caught behind by Mark Boucher – in a warm-up game for the World T20 in 2010.Who would be in your dream slip cordon?
How many can I have? I’ll go for four. Shane Warne at first slip, KP at second, Justin Kemp at third and myself at fourth. I’ll be in there for the banter. That would be a fun cordon.A batsman nicks one of your deliveries behind. Whom do you want to see behind the stumps?
Adam Gilchrist.Who is the fastest bowler you have seen?
Mitchell Johnson.What is the funniest thing you have seen on a cricket field?
Any time Richard Levi dives to stop a single is funny.You win the lottery. What is the first thing you buy?
A plane ticket to Miami.What is the best piece of advice you have ever got?
Don’t think too much.If South Africa made it to the World Cup final and you were in the side, what would you write on the whiteboard in the dressing room before the game?
“Enjoy it and have some fun.”Who would you least like to be stuck on a desert island with?
Richard Levi, again. He’s absolutely useless! He would do nothing and I would end up having to do everything for him.Who is your favourite sportsman outside cricket?
LeBron James.What is the one thing tourists should never do in South Africa?
Get into a minibus taxi. Never do it.What should all hotel rooms have?
A TV. They have to have a TV.What is the best ground you have played at?
Newlands in Cape Town.Is AB de Villiers the most talented man who has ever graced the world?
Without a doubt, yes.What is your favourite comfort food?
Something Italian. Pizza or pasta.What’s your favourite country to tour?
West Indies for the obvious reasons: the beaches, the warm sea and the Banks beer.

MS Dhoni’s field placements have mostly been intuitive this IPL but a tendency to stick to a formulaic bowling strategy, devoid of surprise, revealed itself again.

Arun Venugopal in Hyderabad03-May-2015If one were to look for reasons for Chennai Super Kings’ defeat, the obvious ones stare at the face. A tall chase dented beyond repair by the dismissals of Faf du Plessis and MS Dhoni off consecutive deliveries. Super Kings’ patchy bowling after winning the toss, and David Warner’s smash-mouth batting.All the above factors undeniably had a hand in their loss. However, it’s hard to overlook how Super Kings pushed the wrong buttons when they could have tripped up, or at least, slowed down Sunrisers Hyderabad. Had MS Dhoni revisited some of his bowling plans, they might have been chasing fewer than the 193 they eventually did.Warner posed the most demanding test to Dhoni and Super Kings’ ability to absorb shock and deflect it. He truculently pulled the very first delivery, bowled by Mohit Sharma, for four, and fed off the pace hurled at him. The short balls were shorn of menace; there was enough time for Warner to step back and redirect them when he wasn’t scything the ball through the leg side or punching one past the bowler.Dhoni was , in the way he usually does. There was the familiar staccato whirring of arms, as fielders were moved to the area the previous ball went to. Cue the joke about not being able to score twice in the same region when Dhoni is the captain. But was he ? There was enough evidence to suggest he didn’t.During the Powerplay, Dhoni has hedged his bets on his seamers, especially Ashish Nehra and Mohit. This is a departure from seasons past when R Ashwin would be seen opening the bowling. So loath has Dhoni been to use spinners inside the first six overs that Ashwin’s introduction against Kolkata Knight Riders in Chennai was the only such instance in IPL 2014. Kolkata had zipped away to 52 for 0 in five overs on the occasion, and it was Ashwin’s strike, off his first ball, that changed the course of the match.The Hyderabad pitch had some grass on it and, according to Warner, was hard and bouncy. Which is why Dhoni had opted to bowl. But it was easy to see why Warner wasn’t complaining. The sameness in bowling style, with no variation in pace, was the springboard Warner and his top-heavy side needed.It was a ploy that had worked in earlier matches, when his seamers were doing his bidding. But now, it was reeking of tactical rigidity, and Sunrisers had galloped away to 76 in six overs. Even making allowance for R Ashwin’s absence, Dhoni had in Suresh Raina a useful option to slow things down.When Raina was eventually introduced in the seventh over, it paid off immediately. After playing his first over out quietly, Warner jumped out in the next to give deep square leg catching practice. And even though the next man, Moises Henriques, hit Raina for two sixes, his brief counter-offensive was fraught with risks all along. Soon enough, left-arm spinner Pawan Negi had him stumped in his first over.David Warner posed the most demanding test to MS Dhoni and Super Kings’ ability to absorb shock and deflect it•BCCIDhoni had delayed bringing Negi on until Warner’s dismissal. It was in tune with another maxim high up on the Dhoni manual: never bring a left-arm spinner on when two left-handers are batting. But there were still openings to be exploited. From 128 for 2 in 12 overs, Sunrisers added just four runs in the next two overs, with Shikhar Dhawan getting run-out.At the crease were Eoin Morgan, playing his first game in more than 10 days, and an out-of-form Naman Ojha. There was a real chance to put Sunrisers’ fragile middle-order under pressure. But Dhoni, for the second time in the match, allowed them to get out of jail.Mohit was handed the ball, and Ojha found the release he needed. With Ronit More engaged at the other end, the two overs yielded 24 runs. There was to be no more spin in the innings. Raina had completed his quota, giving away 29 runs. Negi had two more overs, and Ravindra Jadeja wasn’t even considered. Granted he hasn’t been having a great time lately, but surely an over wouldn’t have not hurt? More so because Morgan was struggling to score at even a run a ball initially.Mohit, instead, offered a friendlier brand of bowling to help Morgan’s innings gain some legs. While Nehra and Dwayne Bravo bowled well, there was no one to back them up at the other end.Dhoni was justified in blaming his bowlers for “not bowling to their field”, but there was a case for a niftier approach to bowling changes. Dhoni the Test captain was often criticised for letting games drift, but his limited-overs captaincy has always been about staying ahead of the curve. His field-placements have been intuitive for the most part in this year’s competition, but a tendency to stick to a formulaic bowling strategy, devoid of an element of surprise, revealed itself again on Saturday.

Plays of the day from the first T20 between South Africa and New Zealand in Durban

Firdose Moonda14-Aug-2015Taking it on the chin
AB de Villiers was supposed to keep wicket in this game, which would have saved him from copping a ball to the chin, as he did at the end of the fourth over. Kane Williamson mishit a Morne Morkel delivery he was trying to carve over the covers to long on. De Villiers chased it and was successful in reigning it in, but almost at the expense of a tooth. As he dived to haul the ball in, he was surprised by the bounce, which saw the ball leap up and smack him in the chin. He still managed to grab the ball on the rebound and save one.Taking it in the air Had de Villiers been confined to a position behind the stumps, he would also not have been able to pull off the stunner at the heart of South Africa’s squeeze. New Zealand had just lost their second opener and Colin Munro was required to do a rebuilding job, which he began enthusiastically. Munro went down the track to hit the first ball he faced, a David Wiese shorter delivery, over the leg-side. He got enough bat on it to send it in the air to mid-on, where de Villiers leapt to his left, full-stretch, and snatched it to produce an effort only he can.Letting it through the hands To offset de Villiers’ brilliance, South Africa had to have a clanger, and Morkel provided it. George Worker pulled an Aaron Phangiso delivery his way at long leg and all Morkel had to do was accept, but as he put his hands out to claim it, the ball slipped through, bounced behind him and went for four.Juggling it South Africa had mixed results in the field and New Zealand seemed headed the same way. When Morne van Wyk sliced Doug Bracewell in the air, George Worker had to judge his position carefully to make sure he got under the swirling ball and stabilised himself to take the catch. Worker put himself in the right place, a few paces back from where he was stationed at backward point, and the ball dipped into his hands but then bounced out. Worker reacted quickly to take it at the second attempt and ensure the chance did not go begging in defence of a modest total.Going for glory Rilee Rossouw took South Africa within two scoring shots of victory with back to back boundaries in the 17th over. But then he hurried a little too much and went for the glory shot, a powerful pull that he thought would go over the wicketkeeper’s head but went straight up in the air. Rossouw was deceived by the change of angle from Mitchell McClenaghan, who slanted it across from offstump and made sure South Africa had to wait a little longer for victory.

A chronicle of the most hedonistic period in English cricket, long before the bosses woke up to professionalism

David Hopps18-Jul-2015Such is the professionalism implanted in English cricket as a matter of course these days that the 1980s increasingly seem to be a hallucination. For an entire decade, the England side paraded its inadequacies, its excesses and its downright fun on the back pages of the tabloids, lurching from one crisis to the next in the most frenzied of soap operas.It was not all bad. There was a World Cup final appearance in India, three Ashes victories, and a win in India that would not be repeated for 28 years. Even the two 5-0 defeats against West Indies could easily be explained away by the sheer ferocity, with bat and ball, of one of the greatest Test sides of any era.But it was also laughter, incredulity and anger that tracked England through the most colourful and shameless of decades, a period when rampant individualism was rife, incompetent administrators belonged to a bygone age and were entirely unqualified – or not minded – to cope, and a voracious tabloid media in thrall to Ian Botham was at its most powerful and intrusive.It is easy to sympathise with the view expressed by John Emburey, the former England offspinner, that no professional sport had ever operated in such an amateurish fashion as England cricket did in the 1980s. Selection was hapless and haphazard, overseen for the most part by Peter May, who might well have been an exquisite middle-order batsman in the 1950s, but whose distance from those he sat in judgement on was an abdication of responsibility that only a man of considerable breeding could contentedly pass off. Surely England have never selected as chaotically as they did in the 1980s.David Tossell, five times shortlisted in the British Sports Book awards, would seem to be a reliable guide to a decade where English cricketers’ fondness for rebel South African tours brought them into conflict with politicians, racial tension dogged series against Pakistan in particular, sex and drugs scandals regularly filled the back pages, and where Botham became English cricket’s first no-holds-barred tabloid celebrity.Tossell tells the story of the decade efficiently enough through the recollections of many of those involved – a considerable number of whom hold prominent positions in the game today. But this is a strangely strait-laced rendition for a book entitled Sex & Drugs & Rebel ToursPitch PublishingEven the commitment that royalties will go to the PCA Benevolent Fund does little to break the code of “what goes on tour stays on tour” or encourage any real attempt at self-analysis by those involved. This is a decade that shrugs occasionally but believes it had more fun and sees no reason to apologise. Fun, along with the cricket, was part of the deal then.Neither is there a concerted attempt to explain or examine the social conditions that meant English cricket found itself in the perfect storm.In the 1980s, Thatcherism was the political creed of the day. Self-asserting individualism was encouraged and many of the old structures were unable to cope. There was no more creaking and antiquated structure than the Test and County Cricket Board – the forerunner of the ECB and little better than an Old Boys’ Club – which sent impressionable young cricketers abroad with no more backup than a tour manager and a former professional to carry the bags and organise the nets sessions and wondered why things got out of hand.As behaviour became more ribald, and alcohol was joined by enough dope-smoking for some players to begin to believe, in the words of The Who, that “the stars were connected to the brain”, the paternalistic instinct of the traditional cricket correspondent to concentrate only on the field of play was broken down by a more aggressive tabloid culture and, in Botham, they were able to document the hard-living lifestyle of one of England’s finest cricketers, much of it supervised, lightly, by his gracefully talented, insouciant captain, David Gower.England’s cricketers were living the heady final years before the public demanded more responsibility from the professionals they followed so avidly and now knew so much more about. “The personality and apparent peccadillos of Botham were now moving international cricketers into a new neighbourhood, one with a camera and notebook on every corner,” Tossell writes. Some journalists still talk longingly of the 1984 tour of New Zealand as the “tour of shame” and go misty-eyed at the memories.England was also out of step with much of the cricketing world. Few cricketers committed with any sense of social justice to the fight against apartheid, preferring to stay loyal to friends in South Africa and the prospect of a good payday, and they were repeatedly offended when their stance was questioned, parroting the belief that sport and politics should never mix.And, in the days before TV replays and neutral umpires, when upcountry hotels in Pakistan were an unwelcome imposition, an England captain could be involved in a slanging match with an umpire, Shakoor Rana, stumps could be bashed to the floor, and Botham could joke that Pakistan was the sort of place to pack off the mother-in-law.The first signs of change came in 1986, when Micky Stewart, father of Alec, who was to go on to captain his country, was appointed team manager in 1986 to sort out discipline. He sought to establish the prototype of a framework that Duncan Fletcher and Andy Flower would develop so successfully, but there was another painful decade or more before it really began to have effect.Sex & Drugs & Rebel Tours: The England Cricket Team in the 1980s
By David Tossell
Pitch Publishing
256 pages, £18.99

With three double-hundreds in first-class cricket, consistent scores in the domestic circuit, and scope to improve even further, 19-year-old Mosaddek Hossain has been labelled the “next big thing” in Bangladesh

Mohammad Isam14-Oct-2015Unlike his Bangladesh A team-mates, Mosaddek Hossain’s fortunes during the tour of South Africa and Zimbabwe will be heavily scrutinised back home. Three double-hundreds in the last eight months in first-class cricket has earned Mosaddek the tag of Bangladesh cricket’s “next big thing”.The label has come after a consistent run of big scores in domestic cricket, which dates back to Mosaddek’s first season in the Dhaka Premier League when he single-handedly led Abahani Limited’s title fight in 2013. After being chosen on the A-team tour that left Dhaka on Wednesday night, Mosaddek is now among the second line of Bangladesh cricketers at a time when the senior team is having different requirements for the three formats.Many have observed that Mosaddek’s greatest asset – apart from his physical powers and concentration- is his awareness of his own strength and weakness. After making an unbeaten 200 against Sylhet earlier this month, Mosaddek holds the record for most double-hundreds by a Bangladesh batsman. The first of those three knocks was his 250 against Rangpur, and the second a 282 against Chittagong during the 2014-15 season.It is rare for such a young batsman, particularly in Bangladesh, to bat in so many long innings within a short span of time. Recent batsmen like Liton Das, Rony Talukdar and Marshall Ayub, and before them, Mohammad Ashraful and Raqibul Hasan, all made great starts to their domestic career with significant knocks and run-heavy seasons.Liton made it to the Bangladesh team this year, but has not proved himself at the international level yet. Talukdar also got a single chance, but that is still not enough for someone who has done so well in the domestic circuit. Marshall was given chances in 2013, while Raqibul’s international career has stalled. Ashraful started off at blistering pace in both domestic and international cricket, but a 12-year career hardly reflected his early promise.Mosaddek hails from Mymensingh, 130 km north of Dhaka. He is the second of four children. He learned the game in the Circuit House club, and made it to Dhaka through BCB’s age-group programmes. He made an early impression on his coaches during the nets, and showed his temperament at the crease by averaging 54.37 in Abahani’s 2013-14 Premier League campaign.Still, Mosaddek has a long way to go. As a youngster, he needs to be afforded some protection from inevitable failures. He should also be given time to mature for the international stage. Bangladesh A captain Shuvagata Hom called him “a rare talent”, so expectations must also be managed.Mosaddek sees the Bangladesh A tour as a starting point in his career, but admitted that he might find it hard to adjust to new conditions.”I am seeing this as a big opportunity for a good performance,” Mosaddek told ESPNcricinfo. “I have played for the A team before but missed out on a couple of series in between. I am back now and I want to contribute to the A team by batting consistently as I did in domestic cricket. I won’t get pitches like I do in domestic cricket in South Africa and Zimbabwe. I haven’t been on a foreign tour in some time so it will take time for me to adjust to the conditions.”Mosaddek’s game, from No 5, has been quite simple. He likes to bat within his limitations, which for now is a fair array of shots.He was also seen to have handled batting with the tail quite well, especially against Sylhet during the 2014-15 season. During his maiden double-hundred, he added 423 runs with Al-Amin for the fifth wicket, against Rangpur. In the 282 against Chittagong, he had two late-order 100-plus stands, too.Mosaddek – “I just try to bat naturally. I try to get set and once I do that, like all batsmen, I see the ball better”•WICB Media”I just try to bat naturally. I try to get set and once I do that, like all batsmen, I see the ball better. It also depends on the type of wicket I am batting on. But now I have the confidence to score runs after getting set in the middle. I don’t make any shots. I have certain zones that I am good at, I stick to those usually. A big innings doesn’t come easily. I needed support of all the batsmen at the other end whenever I scored the double-hundreds.”Sometimes it was the tail-enders who really helped me, especially our captain Kamrul Islam Rabbi. He was helpful in my last double-hundred. Time and luck also matter when you play for a long time without getting dismissed. I did think of a triple-hundred when I made 282 against Chittagong. Confidence and remaining hungry are also important factors.”Shahriar Nafees, Mosaddek’s senior team-mate in Barisal, was very impressed by Mosaddek’s ability to bat long. “He bats fluently, fearlessly. He has a sense of his strength and weakness while batting. One thing that stands out for Mosaddek is that he has batted naturally through every situation. He plays exactly how a No 5 should play. All his big innings have been about batting rhythm, and he tended to repeat what he had done before. For a young guy he is a powerful hitter too,” Nafees said.Mosaddek wants to manage his areas of weakness, rather than master it. “It will be wrong on my part to think about the national team now. I will hope to do well on this A tour so that ultimately, by god’s grace, I make it to the national team.”I will have to perform and the rest will be up to the selectors. I play spin quite well but I wouldn’t say I am not good at pace either. I may not be able to master the areas where I lack but I can certainly manage them.”

ESPNcricinfo staff07-Nov-2015Part-timer Stiaan van Zyl, however, removed Kohli, who was smartly caught behind by Dane Vilas•BCCIKohli’s dismissal sparked fresh energy in the visitors’ camp, as Imran Tahir sent back Pujara – who with 77 had made the highest score of the match – two overs later•BCCISimon Harmer then got into the act to dismiss Ajinkya Rahane, Ravindra Jadeja and Amit Mishra in quick succession. After being on 161 for 2, the hosts were bowled out for 200 leaving South Africa 218 to chase•BCCISouth Africa were off to a woeful start, losing Vernon Philander, who was surprisingly sent in as opener, Faf du Plessis and captain Hashim Amla inside the first four overs. R Ashwin and Jadeja reduced them to 10 for 3•BCCIMishra then came to the party with the massive wicket of AB de Villiers. Dean Elgar and Dane Vilas departed not long after, leaving South Africa tottering on 60 for 6•BCCIVan Zyl, with 36, resisted for South Africa, and put on 42 runs for the seventh wicket with Simon Harmer•BCCIJadeja and Ashwin, however, removed both in quick succession, and hastened the end of the innings. South Africa eventually fell short of the target by 109 runs. Both these spinners finished with eight wickets each in the match•BCCI

Steve Camacho’s experience as a player played a big part in his success as a long-serving administrator in West Indies cricket

Tony Cozier04-Oct-2015Steve Camacho, the longest-serving secretary/chief executive of the West Indies Cricket Board and the last Test player in the position, died at his home in Antigua on Friday after a long battle with cancer. He would have been 70 on October 15.Appointed the board’s first executive secretary in 1982, he was held the designation of chief executive officer until his retirement in 2000. In those 18 years, he was manager and assistant manager and selector of West Indies teams and on the ICC chief executives committees.In that time, under the successive presidencies of Jeffrey Stollmeyer, Allan Rae, Sir Clyde Walcott and Peter Short (who passed away this August), West Indies cricket dominated international cricket.I got to develop a firm friendship with Camacho and his wife, Alison, in Barbados when he conducted the board’s business virtually on his own out of a small office at Kensington Oval. It continued until the end.I could understand his anguish at the controversies that have consumed West Indies cricket since his time, and led to its continuing deterioration. In recent years he could hardly bring himself to attend Tests in Antigua, where the board’s headquarters are located following their move from Barbados.Not that it completely dulled his love of life. He was partial to a drink or two but never to overindulgence. He spoke passionately and humorously, and with precise attention to delivery, about his days in the game and the vast number of friends he had made through it.As a patient, technically correct opener who batted in spectacles, Camacho played 11 Tests for West Indies and 35 matches for Guyana between 1965 and 1979. His modest averages of 29.09 in Tests and 34.86 in all first-class matches did no justice to his talent.It was evident in an innings of 157 for Guyana Colts against the touring Australians in 1965 at Bourda, where he had developed his passion for the game at the Georgetown Cricket Club. He was then 19. A year later, his 106 for Guyana against Trinidad and Tobago at the Queen’s Park Oval was the first of his seven first-class hundreds.Clyde Walcott: one of Camacho’s mentors in administration•Getty ImagesStrong cricketing family ties guided his future. His grandfather, GC Learmond, represented British Guiana, Trinidad and Barbados in the inter-colonial tournaments at the turn of the 20th century, and toured England with West Indies teams in 1900 and 1906. His father, George, a left-hand batsman and right-arm medium-pacer, played 15 matches for British Guiana, three as captain.Camacho junior was part of the phenomenally powerful Guyana batting team of the 1960s that included, at one time or another, his dashing opening partner Roy Fredericks, Rohan Kanhai, Basil Butcher, Joe Solomon, Clive Lloyd and Alvin Kallicharran.When he was picked in the Test team for the first time, against England in the Caribbean, his 87 in the fourth Test at the Queen’s Park Oval remained his highest score. He struggled on the 1968-69 tour of Australia, managing 57 runs in his two Tests, but retained his place for the England tour later in 1969, topping the batting averages in the Tests with 46.75. An ordinary series against India in 1971 proved to be his last.Although he continued for Guyana until 1979, he was being groomed for administrative work by mentors like Walcott, Berkeley Gaskin and Kenny Wishart. Walcott, a Barbadian, was then the national coach, and credited with the emergence of players from outside the confines of the capital, Georgetown. He was also Guyana captain and board president. Camacho eventually joined him during his term as WICB president.Gaskin, a tall medium-pacer, who had two Tests against England in 1948, was subsequently more familiar as a WICB member; he was manager on Camacho’s tour of Australia and New Zealand in 1968-69. Wishart, a pre-war British Guiana captain, was later a highly regarded secretary of the Georgetown Cricket Club and the Guyana board.When the post of executive secretary was established, Camacho was the obvious candidate. It was his background that strongly guided his success in the game that was his passion.

The story of the unique bat Lance Cairns used to launch six sixes at the MCG and its designer, John Guy, the former New Zealand batsman

Brydon Coverdale09-Sep-2015″Cairns there, hitting it with only one hand. And in spite of the fact he hits it with one hand, it still goes over the longest boundary at the MCG for six.”Those were the words of Frank Tyson, incredulous, commentating the remarkable innings of Lance Cairns in a one-day international in 1983. Cairns struck six sixes that day against Australia, including his one-handed effort against Dennis Lillee. His 21-ball fifty was at the time the fastest in ODI history. And just as memorable as the feat itself was the sight of the strange bat with which it was achieved.Shoulder pads were a fashion statement in the 1980s, but in cricket it was quite the opposite: the Excalibur bat used by Cairns had no shoulders at all. He looked less a cricketer holding a bat than a caveman wielding a club. And where is that Excalibur bat now? Not with Cairns. He gifted it back to the man who designed it, and Excalibur now lives in suburban Melbourne.A left-hand batsman who excelled against spin, John Guy played 12 Tests for New Zealand in the 1950s and ’60s. His employment with Shell made him move around a lot – he played for five of the six New Zealand domestic provinces – until he bought a sports store, and after that moved into the bat industry working for Newbery.And propped up in a corner of his living room is one of the most famous Newbery bats of all. Now 81, Guy taps Cairns’ Excalibur on the ground and simulates a couple of shots. Then he hands the bat over; it is heavy, and, counter-intuitively, for a bat without shoulders, all the weight feels like it is towards the top. It feels different. It looks different. It different.The design originated in England, where Guy observed a Newbery bat with what he calls a “dry knot” – a darker, weaker section of the willow – in its shoulder. Guy wondered out loud to John Newbery, the master bat maker, whether the bat would split if a ball hit that dry knot. Yes, Newbery said, the shoulder would fly right off. But what could they do about it?”I said, ‘What if we shave it?’ So that’s what we did,” Guy says. “We shaved the shoulder down and I said, ‘I think that’s a good idea for a bat’. Newbery said: ‘What would you call it? It’s got to be something like a sword’. I said it felt like a heavy wand. He said, ‘What about King Arthur, Excalibur’. I said, ‘You’ve hit the nail on the head, it sounds great’.”Thus the Excalibur was born.

“I always felt that I wasn’t wanted in the New Zealand team. I came from a small city in New Zealand. You’re not one of the majors, you’re not mixing with the others so much”John Guy

“It was just a marketing ploy,” Guy admits when asked if there were any real advantages to the bat. “Although if you have no shoulders, you can’t get caught off the shoulder of the bat.”Guy could talk about bats and batting technique all day. He watches the game as closely now as ever. He likes what he sees from some of the current crop of New Zealand players, but despairs at the state of batting coaching in the modern game.Guy is not shy to say what he thinks, and he is a shrewd analyst. The then-coach John Wright invited Guy to fly to Hobart in 2011 to speak to the New Zealand team before their Test against Australia. They had just lost the first Test at the Gabba and Wright wanted to find a way to build up the confidence of his men.”I just built the whole talk around the fact that no one is inferior without their consent,” Guy says. “I pointed out that they consented in Brisbane because they dropped seven catches. If they catch the blooming thing, they can win the game.”I said on this wicket the Australians are going to bowl short and flat and try to knock your head off, because it’s as green as the outfield. But you’ve got to bowl line and length. The Australians will get frustrated because they can’t whack you around. And what happened? Doug Bracewell bowled 20-odd overs and got 6 for 40.”And New Zealand won the match, their first Test victory in Australia since 1985. Guy was a national selector in the 1980s, but that stint ended around the same time that he lost money in a business deal that turned sour. But he remains involved in making bats and other equipment, retaining the sporting interest that was sparked as a young man in Nelson.He was 12th man when New Zealand were famously bowled out for a record low total of 26 against England at Eden Park in March 1955 – “We were in the game until the top went off the wicket,” he says – and made his Test debut later that year in Dhaka. Facing Fazal Mahmood and his colleagues on the matting pitch was a challenge, but Guy helped bat out an admirable draw.The team then moved on to India and Guy, who had debuted at No. 7, was shifted up to first drop by the captain, Harry Cave*. Mind you, Cave took some convincing from broadcaster Iain Gallaway, who rated Guy highly and had the ear of Walter Hadlee.”Gallaway said I should be batting higher, because they had a couple of good spinners and the guys batting up there couldn’t play spin as well as me,” Guy says. “I go to the ground the next day and the captain says, ‘I believe you’re not happy batting at No. 7’. I said, ‘Well, you always have me batting at No. 3 for Central Districts and I haven’t done too bad’. He said, ‘Right, you’re batting at 3, and if you get out you’re on the first plane home. I ended up batting for seven hours.”Cricket bat sans shoulder: Lance Cairns could clear the “G” one-handed•Getty ImagesGuy scored 102 in that innings in Hyderabad; he made 52 and 91 later in the series, but never scored another Test century. His success in India came from having learnt how to face spin from Leslie Townsend, an Englishman who moved to New Zealand to coach.”He used to bowl and get me to read his hand, how to go down the wicket,” Guy says. “Your first step has got to be a big one, not a little wee shuffle and then try to compensate by extending later on. You go big first and then adjust.”The other thing was that he also taught me the same way as the Indians bat: hit into the line of spin, not with the spin. If you think of the logistics of that, it’s pretty sound, because if you hit with the spin you’re turning your bat, but hitting it against the spin you hit with the full face.”But Guy’s success in India did not translate into a long period in the Test team. When New Zealand toured England in 1958, Guy made his way there as well. Not with the squad, though.”I worked my way to England as a steward on board a cargo ship that also took 12 passengers,” he says. “I was serving tables and looking after them.”In England, he secured a county deal with Northamptonshire, but the New Zealand management objected to one of their own playing against them in a tour match. When Northamptonshire hosted the New Zealanders, Guy played anyway, and made 43 not out before his captain, Raman Subba Row, declared overnight.Guy’s cards were not exactly marked – he played four more Tests, back home and in South Africa, over the next three years – but he was disillusioned.”I always felt that I wasn’t wanted in the New Zealand team. I came from a small city in New Zealand. You’re not one of the majors, you’re not mixing with the others so much.”But Guy kept playing first-class cricket until he was 38, and has the distinction of having played for every provincial side but Auckland.”Shell transferred me from Christchurch to Dunedin to Wellington to Blenheim to Gisborne.” Consequently, he played for Central Districts, then Canterbury, then Otago, then Wellington, then back to Central Districts again, then on to Northern Districts to finish his career.Then came bat-making, selecting New Zealand teams, a move to Melbourne, and an ongoing love of cricket that seems unquenchable. He likes the look of Kane Williamson, Mitchell Santner, Ish Sodhi, Ben Wheeler and a few others. He’ll watch almost any match that is on TV (and find a way to see some that aren’t), and keeps cricket memorabilia all around the house.And, of course, Excalibur takes pride of place.* 0500 GMT, September 10: Corrected from John Reid.

Stats highlights from an incredible New Zealand win in Christchurch

Bharath Seervi28-Dec-2015250 Balls left in the New Zealand innings when they completed the run-chase. The margin is the seventh-largest in ODI history.3 Times New Zealand have won an ODI with 250 or more balls remaining. Sri Lanka have done it twice, and England and Australia once each. New Zealand are the only team, though, to also win these games by ten wickets.14.16 New Zealand’s run rate in this chase, the second highest in any ODI innings. They had chased 94 in six overs against Bangladesh in Queenstown in 2007, at a rate of 15.83, which is the highest. The top four run rates in an ODI innings are all by New Zealand.17 Deliveries needed by Martin Guptill to complete his half-century, the second-fastest in ODI history. Only AB de Villiers has got there quicker, off 16 balls against West Indies in Johannesburg earlier this year. Guptill’s effort is the fastest for New Zealand, beating Brendon McCullum’s 18-ball effort against England in the 2015 World Cup.310 Guptill’s strike rate in his unbeaten innings of 93 off 30 balls. It is the second-highest for a 50-plus score in ODIs. The highest is 338.63 by de Villiers in his innings of 149 off 44 balls.39 Balls required by New Zealand to complete their 100, the fastest for any team since 2002. The earlier record was also held by them: against England in the 2015 World Cup, they got there in 40 balls. In this game, they reached 50 off 16 balls, which is also the fastest since 2002.20.50 Dushmantha Chameera’s economy rate in the two overs he bowled: he conceded 41 in those overs. There have been only two instances of poorer economy rates for a bowler bowling two or more overs in an ODI. The top four such figures have all been against New Zealand.19 The top score for Sri Lanka, their fourth-lowest top score in ODIs in which at least ten batsmen have batted.2 Totals lower than 117 for Sri Lanka against New Zealand in ODIs (in innings when they have been bowled out). Their lowest is 112, also in Christchurch, in 2007.5 Times Sri Lanka have been all out for less than 200 runs in ODIs this year – the most among the Full Member sides. Apart from the two instances in this series, they were also all out for 195 against New Zealand, 133 against South Africa and 181 against Pakistan.93 Runs scored by Guptill in his team’s first 50 balls – the most by a batsman in his team’s first 50 balls since 2002. Brendon McCullum scored an unbeaten 80, which is the second-highest, but in only six overs in the Queenstown ODI against Bangladesh in 2007.5 Number of four-wicket hauls for Matt Henry in ODIs. All of them have come against Asian teams – two each against Sri Lanka and Pakistan, and one against India on debut. He has taken 27 wickets in eight innings against these three teams and just nine wickets in nine innings against the other teams.

West Indies had brief moments of ascendancy on the first day in Hobart but they were undone by familiar shortcomings in bowling and fielding

Daniel Brettig10-Dec-20151:34

‘Conditions might be challenging tomorrow’ – Voges

“I think we can forget sometimes that it’s not always about the contest, it’s sometimes about seeing great cricketers put on a show, and we certainly saw that at the WACA.”With these words on ABC radio during the Perth Test, the Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland made a pre-emptive apology for what was likely to be witnessed in the series against West Indies in the prime weeks of summer, Christmas and New Year holidays. Not a contest, but an exhibition.The decision to place Jason Holder’s hapless, harried tourists under the brightest spotlight of an Australian season has seemed wrong-headed for some time – certainly over the past three years in which New Zealand, the team handed the “curtain-raiser” series in November, have risen significantly from a low base of performance to become legitimate challengers to most opponents. They showed as much in Adelaide, a close-run thing for Steven Smith’s men.There was nothing of the sort to be witnessed in Hobart, on a beautiful, shimmering day when the Derwent River glistened behind Bellerive Oval. For all the stirring rhetoric offered by Sir Curtly Ambrose two days out from the start of the series, the reality of West Indies in their current state was shown rather more accurately when the coach, Phil Simmons, had clean-bowled the reserve batsman Shane Dowrich with a throwdown in the nets. This was meant to be West Indies’ stronger suit: by day’s end they had conceded the most runs in a single day in the team’s long history.For much of their recent past, West Indies have specialised in performing for a few days of a Test match, only to give the game away by being unable to sustain that effort. Day one of this match showed that syndrome in accelerated form – after Jerome Taylor and Kemar Roach bowled a fine first two overs and created a chance, the rest of the day turned into the most unedifying pageant of shoddy bowling, casual fielding and uninspired captaincy.Their day was epitomised by the contribution of Shannon Gabriel. Chosen on match morning in the expectation that his pace would be disconcerting for some of the Australia batsmen, he delivered an expensive opening spell before briefly finding his line to beat Joe Burns between bat and pad. Later, having bowled only 10 overs at a cost of 59, Gabriel left the field complaining of ankle pain, and is set to have scans overnight. His best was all too fleeting.In the morning, Smith’s side had permitted Holder’s collective to think they were actually in the contest by giving up three wickets. Burns and Smith each got decent individual deliveries, and David Warner was somewhat unluckily snaffled down the leg side on the stroke of lunch – his innings having already set the breakneck pace of Australia’s first innings, even if he was unable to carry through in the fashion of the WACA Ground.Yet, even in their brief moments of ascendance, the tourists were unable to use these wickets as a way into the Australian middle order, even though it was the exact scenario Ambrose had foreshadowed in his imperial, threatening tones. Instead Adam Voges and Shaun Marsh were able to gallop away, piercing porous fields repeatedly and peeling off a pair of sparkling hundreds for a crowd of approximately 5,927.It had already been well established that Voges enjoyed these opponents. His debut hundred in Dominica had been an innings of rare quality against a team that had been far more lively thanks to the regular incisions made by Devendra Bishoo, a skillful leg spinner. Bishoo is in Hobart but was left out for Jomel Warrican, who had caused Voges a brief moment’s pain in Antigua during that tour’s warm-up fixture by getting him lbw when he thought his Test spot was pending.This time, Voges confronted a scenario not quite so fraught as that he faced at Windsor Park, and his batting rhythm was of the same metronomic kind that took him to a prolific Sheffield Shield aggregate last summer. He took a heavy toll on Warrican, tucking away four boundaries from one over, while also feasting on a liberal supply of balls delivered short and wide of the off stump – England had never been this generous to his pet cutting zone.”It’s fairly different to Dominica, the conditions were fairly different, there wasn’t a lot of spin today,” Voges said. “It’s a pretty good wicket, I thought our openers did a terrific job to get us off the mark, I think we were 70 after 10 overs and that really set the tone for the day. To come in when I did, we lost Smudger and Davey in pretty quick succession, but we put on 120 in the first session and West Indies were a little inconsistent with their lengths today, and we were able to capitalise on that.”Marsh, meanwhile, carried on with the certainty and improved defensive technique he first exhibited in Adelaide, albeit against bowling of a lesser standard than that provided by New Zealand. Only once all day was he beaten outside off stump, by a Holder delivery that moved away off the seam. Otherwise he presented the broadest of bats to clatter the ball repeatedly through the covers. He has created a dilemma for selectors obliged to recall Usman Khawaja when he returns to fitness ahead of Boxing Day.”I was pretty relaxed today, and with Adam going so well and scoring so freely that got me going as well,” Marsh said. “I felt really confident coming into the game, I was just happy to get a good start and build on that, and to get my first hundred in Australia I’m very happy with that. I definitely feel comfortable at this level, I’ve just got to keep working on my consistency. I’m really enjoying being around the guys at the moment, they’ve made me feel really welcome. I’ve got to keep working hard, keep enjoying it and keep having fun out there.”As Peter Siddle, Voges and Smith had all stated during the week leading up to this day, it is not for Australia’s players to worry about the troubles of the team they are facing. It is their job to be professional, ruthless even, and that is exactly how Voges and Marsh performed. In doing so they are exposing the many and varied faults built up over a long period of time in West Indian cricket, exacerbated by the Twenty20 age but primarily created by the world’s most dysfunctional cricket governance.As one-sided as day one appeared, it is better for the future of cricket in the Caribbean that such events force true introspection and thought about the game in the region, not only from West Indians but also from the administrators of other, more prosperous nations.That takes us back to Sutherland’s interview in Perth, where he stated the old line that these are problems beyond the remit of CA. “It’s something we don’t have control over,” he said. “The West Indies are going through a difficult period in terms of performance.”Indeed they are. But if other nations do not work at restoring the cricket strength of a region that was once so central to the game, there are likely to be many more days like this, and many more crowds propped up by school children admitted to the ground for free.